Glen Rose is another contributer to the baritone ukulele world. I have met him, seen his shows, and been to a class at the Ukulele Club of Santa Cruz. He is the man to follow if you like jazz music. He has written several books and has a selection specifically for the bari player.

Glen simplifies jazz into very user friendly chord combinations and they sound great. For those that haven't played the jazzy 9th's and 13th's you might find a whole new range of sounds to tinker with. Glen shares so much more and you can explore his videos on YouTube, his website, and training videos by following these links:

Glen often plays a baritone ukulele with Low G strings, in GCEA tuning since he's looking to reach the largest audience possible. But the savvy DoGBonE tuned bari-uke player learns to adapt on a regular basis. I think that it will be well worth the effort. Here's one of his blues scale lessons...

Jonathan has played many of his creations with his baritone ukulele. He is branching out into educational videos with a humorous side. He is a master video and song creator. The songs below do not have the bari but if you like Jonathan's style you may like these too.

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Ondrej has created several book for the baritone ukulele. I just came across Ondrej's book, Jewish Songs for the Baritone Ukulele. It appears there are actually 2 books on Amazon: a high-D version and a low-D version. Here's the book link via Amazon.com...

There is one song from the book posted as a pdf, link. Scroll down to page 31 to see Tum Balailaka (low-D version) and page 33 to see the same as a high-D version.

Ondrej has been prolific in his book writing and is a recognized writer on Amazon.com, link. I have linked several of his books here. Unfortunately, I have not always been able to determine whether a book was in low-D or high-D by the descriptions posted on the covers or the "book description" on Amazon.com where all of the links tie back. So look carefully.

Friday, July 5, 2013

I'm sure that I posted Brushy quite a while ago but perhaps on Humble Uker. I think that his one-string base playing and rhythm skills are so solid. I have often wondered how we might use that low D-string too accomplish a different sound.

Brushy performs one of his most heartfelt songs in Kingston. This is the original, uncut, full version, from The King of One String DVD and soundtrack.

I have had the pleasure of taking a day trip to beautiful Jamaica. The countryside is very beautiful and lush green, the ocean is near aqua blue and quite warm. I remember seeing all of the school children in their brightly colored school uniforms. Each school had a distinct color and they seemed to take great care of what they have and to cherish their educations.

I know nothing about how to play base and very little about percussion but I do think a study of Brushy's one-string and "knocking" could be added to a bari-uke player's repertoire.

Watch him play the one string bass here...

I see Brushy playing different frets for a variety of songs on YouTube

No Man Stop Me he plays the following frets: 3, 5, 0, 1. Putting them in order I see: 0, 1, 3, 5. On the guitar this would yield: E, F, G, A. On the Bari-Uke D-string we would have D, Eb, F, G and I am not sure where this gets me.

In his "My First Song" video he plays frets 0, 5, 7 and in the key of E gets E, A, B which is the 1-4-5 of the E scale. On the bari-uke we would get D-scale 1-4-5 or D, G, A. This 1-4-5 may be the secret to the bass. The rhythm is now the challenge.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

My ever hunting pal, Ron Hale, came across this video and there is a baritone ukulele and an incredible sound. It is my policy to keep this blog to standard DoGBonE tuning but, of course, there is an exception to every rule. This one is actually an example video of GCEA tuning on a baritone ukulele body. There is also an article on Ukulele Review that gives further discussion to the topic.

DoGBonE NEWS

Lately, I have been working on The Bad-Ass Baritone Ukulele, TBABU, which is a blog of playlists featuring baritone ukulele players that have been featured on HB over the last 8 years. Each playlist is of a single artist (or band).

Do me a favor and take a look at TBABU, leave comments on any player you like. I use these as playlists to enjoy at the end of the workday or while drving.

Thanks for your bari interest...

Jeff West / Humble Uker / June 21, 2017

P.S. Thanks to Roger, Tom and Andrew for their contribution to HB over the last few months.